Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Ice Cream Sandwich Comes To The Bionic

It has been more than a year since it was first introduced, but as of this morning, my Motorola Droid Bionic has finally gotten the official upgrade to Android 4.04, Ice Cream Sandwich. Had ICS been released for the Bionic when I bought it a year ago, it would have been a truly amazing phone. Imagine, the first dual core Android phone to have both 4G LTE support as well as Ice Cream Sandwich. It would have been glorious. But, it was not to be. Instead, the Droid Bionic was released with Gingerbread which made for a shoddy connection to Verizon's 4G LTE network. The Droid Bionic was so buggy with Gingerbread, I rooted my phone and put Android 4.1 Jellybean on it. I went back to stock this week in order to get the scheduled OTA update.

There is a long list of improvements, so here are just some of the cool things about Ice Cream Sandwich on the Bionic:

The buggy 4G LTE connection issues seem to have been fixed. Under Gingerbread, the connection dropped a lot. However, you no longer have the ability to turn 4G LTE off in favor of 3G CDMA.

Face Unlock, a feature that allows users to unlock handsets using facial recognition software. This takes some training and isn't a fool proof security feature, but it'll keep your friends from jacking your phone and playing pranks on you.

The ability to disable apps, which helps when dealing with the bloatware that Verizon makes you deal with. No more will you have to contend with the Slingbox, Blockbuster and GoToMeeting app.

An improved camera app with zero shutter lag, time lapse settings, panorama mode, and the ability to zoom while recording

Integrated screen capture. Just push down the Volume Down and Power buttons.

Auto syncing with your Chrome bookmarks.

Motorola has announced its intention to upgrade the Bionic to Jellybean at some point, but no release date has been announced. If you're not up for rooting your Bionic in order to get it now, then Ice Cream Sandwich will certainly tide you over for now.

Oh my gosh...I feel like such an idiot. I have been furious for the past week that my screen grab app no longer worked with Ice Cream Sandwich, and I was not able to find one that worked in Play, either. Duh. Thanks so much for posting this!